ABSTRACT
The story of neoconservatism begins with the 1960s. The new left inspires a new right, including a neoconservative faction focused on the restoration of a common cultural tradition and a disciplined, stable, and socially cohesive nation. In the 1930s, City College of New York was largely attended by working-class Jewish young men — some of whom would become the foremost neoconservative intellectuals of a later era. When the president of City College invited Italian students representing Benito Mussolini's fascist regime to speak on campus in 1934, welcomed "the tricked and enslaved students of Fascist Italy", with demonstrations thereafter persisting for weeks. In 1950, The God That Failed featured the political reflections of several American and Western European intellectuals originally committed to the communist cause, but ultimately disillusioned by the Soviet experiment. Despite existing tensions, paleoconservatives and neoconservatives mutually influenced one another throughout the 1980s. This is a crucial insight: The Cold War was as much about enemies within as without.
